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Just wondering what could have caused the soot to escape your stove.
Is your rope seal around your door OK? I heard you should replace all seals and gaskets yearly. I'm on year 2 and haven't done a replacement yet.

Does anyone know if there is a sensor in the pellet bin area of the Santa Fe?
My auger motor wont turn unless pellets are in the bin. just seems strange to me. Also if anyone knows, can the auger motor spin without turning the auger? Does it have some type of slip system? Thanks!

Just wondering what could have caused the soot to escape your stove.
Is your rope seal around your door OK? I heard you should replace all seals and gaskets yearly. I'm on year 2 and haven't done a replacement yet.

When I was having the Over Fire problem before (like you describe), I decided to do a thorough cleaning to see if that would help solve it. So I pulled off the exhaust vent (after full cool down) and vacuumed both stove and vent pipe out. There was some ash in there, nothing that would restrict it though. Brushed down the entire fire box and heat exchangers by removing the upper plate too.

Where I was surprised to find an over abundance of ash, was in the firebox. Behind the three section cast iron back wall. You know.... where you use an Allen wrench to remove the bolt in the center section. Behind the right side section, is where the system vented exhaust leaves the firebox. It was piled up over the bottom edge of the exhaust hole and the seal chord around the Pellet Feed chute was not quite right either. So I vacuumed out everything, reset the seal and re-installed the cast iron wall and upper heat exchanger plate.

***Important: Next thing I did was clean out the fire pot w/ the scraper and used a wire in the air feed vent holes. *I wanted to make sure the thermocouple sensor was touching the inside of the pipe sleeve end. If it isn't, then this can be responsible for over firing too. By not shutting or slowing down pellet feed at the wrong time, after start up (temps sensed are varied from 200-400* at this thermocouple). This thing senses the temp at 200*F first and turns on/off or up/down pellet feed and the igniter when in startup or normal operation. That's when the green then blue light in control box lights up too. If it's late/delayed, it can feed too many pellets in and over fire. So I pulled it apart to be sure I got the tip touching the inside end of that tube sleeve and locked it back down.

Now I don't know which one of these things I did, is responsible for clearing up my over fire problems (and smoke smell). But it burns beautiful now. With never an over fire occurring. When they used to happen near every time it started up before.

I'm still faced with my touchy control box connection for the igniter, though (in my case). Next step for me is to get all new proper connection terminals. The Originals from the Factory, are all a mixed batch in there now. Like they ran out of the good ones and used some that don't quite fit, that black female terminal strip properly. There is a split function crimp on these. If you don't get them right in the factory, then that can cause intermittent connections too. One crimps the insulation and the other crimps the wire. I suspect thats where my problem is going to be. That the crimp on one wire is not making a solid connection.

It's a pity that a product made in America, has to be re-manufactured by the owner, to work properly. Especially for what we pay for them. I only expect to have to re-manufacture stuff from China. But made in the USA? ..arghhh

For smoke problems, I was reading in another forum, where an owner's heat exchanger pipes were preventing the door from closing and sealing properly. That too is a factory defect and we have to break arms to get them to either replace, repair or even admit Quadrafire has Quality Control issues with these Santa Fe Pellet stove!!!

Give it a try, it can't hurt and may fix your problems w/o making a service call!

BTW... I'm not sure about a sensor to actually sense pellets, but there are temp sensors. Not sure what the stove uses to prevent back fire into the pellet chamber to shut it down. Maybe a combination of temp sensor and the sensor for vacuum on air supply. This stove works on the principle of Powered Fan Exhaust instead of Power Fan Fed air supply. If pellets get too low, then air may feed too much through the pellet chute instead of the outside air supply through the holes for burning. That may cause it to stop the auger from feeding (indicating low pellet levels). M

Quadra-Fire Mt Vernon

In my 6th season with my Mt Vernon stove, very happy so far except having some problem I can't resolve. Stove runs great on 1st,2nd,and 4th settings on heat control knob. But for some reason on the third setting it seems to run like it is on first setting. Had service tech check it out, he can't find anything wrong. Control box was replaced and seems to be running the same way. Replaced 4 position heat control switch also. Just weird when you switch from 2nd setting to 3rd, fan speed slows down not speed up as it did before. Service Tech tried several control boxes and it did the same thing. I don't recall this happening several years ago. Any suggestions?

Wow Nice Response!

Originally Posted by kroneage

When I was having the Over Fire problem before (like you describe), I decided to do a thorough cleaning to see if that would help solve it. So I pulled off the exhaust vent (after full cool down) and vacuumed both stove and vent pipe out. There was some ash in there, nothing that would restrict it though. Brushed down the entire fire box and heat exchangers by removing the upper plate too.

Where I was surprised to find an over abundance of ash, was in the firebox. Behind the three section cast iron back wall. You know.... where you use an Allen wrench to remove the bolt in the center section. Behind the right side section, is where the system vented exhaust leaves the firebox. It was piled up over the bottom edge of the exhaust hole and the seal chord around the Pellet Feed chute was not quite right either. So I vacuumed out everything, reset the seal and re-installed the cast iron wall and upper heat exchanger plate.

***Important: Next thing I did was clean out the fire pot w/ the scraper and used a wire in the air feed vent holes. *I wanted to make sure the thermocouple sensor was touching the inside of the pipe sleeve end. If it isn't, then this can be responsible for over firing too. By not shutting or slowing down pellet feed at the wrong time, after start up (temps sensed are varied from 200-400* at this thermocouple). This thing senses the temp at 200*F first and turns on/off or up/down pellet feed and the igniter when in startup or normal operation. That's when the green then blue light in control box lights up too. If it's late/delayed, it can feed too many pellets in and over fire. So I pulled it apart to be sure I got the tip touching the inside end of that tube sleeve and locked it back down.

Now I don't know which one of these things I did, is responsible for clearing up my over fire problems (and smoke smell). But it burns beautiful now. With never an over fire occurring. When they used to happen near every time it started up before.

I'm still faced with my touchy control box connection for the igniter, though (in my case). Next step for me is to get all new proper connection terminals. The Originals from the Factory, are all a mixed batch in there now. Like they ran out of the good ones and used some that don't quite fit, that black female terminal strip properly. There is a split function crimp on these. If you don't get them right in the factory, then that can cause intermittent connections too. One crimps the insulation and the other crimps the wire. I suspect thats where my problem is going to be. That the crimp on one wire is not making a solid connection.

It's a pity that a product made in America, has to be re-manufactured by the owner, to work properly. Especially for what we pay for them. I only expect to have to re-manufacture stuff from China. But made in the USA? ..arghhh

For smoke problems, I was reading in another forum, where an owner's heat exchanger pipes were preventing the door from closing and sealing properly. That too is a factory defect and we have to break arms to get them to either replace, repair or even admit Quadrafire has Quality Control issues with these Santa Fe Pellet stove!!!

Give it a try, it can't hurt and may fix your problems w/o making a service call!

BTW... I'm not sure about a sensor to actually sense pellets, but there are temp sensors. Not sure what the stove uses to prevent back fire into the pellet chamber to shut it down. Maybe a combination of temp sensor and the sensor for vacuum on air supply. This stove works on the principle of Powered Fan Exhaust instead of Power Fan Fed air supply. If pellets get too low, then air may feed too much through the pellet chute instead of the outside air supply through the holes for burning.

Hope I reply to this correctly.

Kroneage I never thought of removing the plate with the allen head screw. What was I thinking? I am going to do this right now, I will get back to you soon

Keithl I was thinking about your soot problem, I don't think it could be your door seal. I know I suggested this but your stove shouldn't work without a proper vacuum seal. Its been bothering me because a malfunction like that could potentially be hazardous, like burning your house down! Maybe it was some sort of vapor lock then it released. Very strange.

Kroneage, did a thorough cleaning of my stove top to bottom and removed the plate with the Allen head screw. Lots of ash behind it. My stove has been stopping intermittently for some unknown reason but I only had one stoppage (if that's even a word) since I cleaned it. Thanks for the info, I am going to remove this plate more often and vacuum behind it.

You're definately right it could have been very dangerous but whatever it was it definately has fixed itself. It has been running great since that happened. Just hoping that it never happens again or that I can find out the real cause and resolve it.

I have a quadrafire mt. vernon ae, I am having problems with black soot coming out of chimney after the fire burrns down and refills the firepot, called tech support, sent a dealer out to install new thermostat and board, is better but still not right, have thermostat at manual 3 and flame height at -5 cant go any lower. Contacted dealer he doesn't have a answer, could it be combustion motor, only soots after firepot refills. Can anyone help?

Quad feed system

QF Joe, the Quad feed system is tied to the vacuum switch. You need pellets in the hopper to form an air seal so it can sense sufficient vacuum to close the switch which then allows it to feed pellets. No need to operate the auger without pellets in the hopper but more importantly, it is a safety mechanism proving minimum venting (or so the theory goes) before allowing the unit to burn.

As for Black Particulate Matter entry into the home from the stove, this would need to be proven by a professional versed in house physics, pressure diagnostics and with access to a micromanometer. If the unit is spilling into the home, it must be shutdown at once and repaired.

that goes back to your stove turns off the call for heat light goes on so it fills the pot with fuel and begins the ignition process. as you have noticed smoke builds up and then poof the smoke is flamable too so it ignites as well it just burns very fast but it is a mini explosion forcing that pressure out the exaust pushing soot out with it. if you run on a thermostat i dont think there is a way to avoid it except keeping your vent pipe very clean.